1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system for conveying information to an occupant of a motor vehicle. In particular, such system may be a method or apparatus may employed in the context of a driver assistance system.
2. Related Art
Motor vehicles like cars, trucks and the like increasingly use driver assistance systems to assist a driver in driving the motor vehicle. In the following description, a vehicle equipped with a driver assistance system will be referred to as an “equipped vehicle”.
An example for such a driver assistance system is a parking assistance system that includes sensors for measuring a distance to obstacles like other vehicles behind the equipped vehicle and that emits warning signals corresponding to the measured distance. Such warning signals are known, as an example, to be a tone, where frequency of the warning tone increases with decreasing distance.
Navigations systems are another example of the driver assistance system. In this example, the navigation systems, using GPS (Global Positioning System), determine the position of the equipped vehicle and inform the driver of the route to be taken to a desired destination.
Yet other examples of driver assistance systems monitor traffic surrounding the equipped vehicle and inform the driver of dangerous situations, for example, an impending collision or a distance to another vehicle below a predetermined safety distance. This informing of the driver may be done acoustically by warning signals and the like, optically using displays or by a combination of the acoustic and optical signals.
In all of the above described examples, some driving-relevant information, be it a route to be taken, a distance to an obstacle or information regarding an impending collision, is obtained, and based on the obtained driving-relevant information, an audio message, a visual message and/or a tactile message is conveyed to the driver.
When conveying such information, it is generally desirable that the significance of the information can be understood by the driver of the equipped vehicle as quickly and intuitively as possible such that the distraction of the driver is minimized and quick reaction times, especially in the case of warnings of dangerous situations, become possible. In this respect, it is for example not desirable that after hearing a warning signal the driver additionally has to consult a display to obtain more information before the driver can respond to the dangerous situation.
Therefore, a need exists for a system for conveying information to an occupant of a motor vehicle that provides for improved reception of the information by the occupant. A further need exists for a system that conveys such information through auditory presentation, which enables a fast reaction time, since auditory information is intuitively processed by cognition, whereas visual information presentation forces the recipient to identify and interpret information.